Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-04-29
PROHIBITION vs.. TAXATION.

PROHIBITION VS.. TAXATION.
The Social Effects OF a Licensed Sa.
loon and q Taxed Saloon
Are Identical.
Extract from an address at Detroit by Hon.
John b. Finch.1
The quibbling and twisting over the dis
tinction between taxation and license is y
confession on the part of the advocates of
tax hat the liquor business is wrong. If
it is not wrong, why object to licensing it?
IL the liquor business is right, there is no
reason why the Government should not Ii
cense and permit its existence. If the
liquor business is wrong, then to seek to
justlly It's existence upon the ground that
the Government had not specifically said
while deriving benefits from the traffic that
the traffic might exist is the trick Of a
sophist. But for the sake Of the argument
tonight let US grant that there is a differ
ence between license and tax, and say that
the methods Of punishment for the
liquor, crime now being discuss
ed Id this State are tax and
prohibition. From this point I de-
sire to go forward to prove that of all the
humbugs, frauds and failures ever written
upon the statute books Of a free people,
the tax laws Of this country are the worst;
that they never have been enforced; that
they never will be enforced, never can be
enforced. First, because they are wrong
in theory and q failure in practice. There
appear in society three classes Of institu-
tions-good, part good and part bad, and
bad. Government protects and defends
the good, regulates and restraints the part
Regulation implies something good in the
thing regulated that is to be developed by
regulation. You regulate to develop, not
to destroy. You take your boy across your
knee to regulate him, to develop the good
traits and repress the bad traits in the boy;
you do not regulate to kill. You take your
whip in your hand to regulate the ugly
horse, not to destroy but to develop the
good tendencies and destroy the bad ten
denotes of the horse. In one corner Of
your yard is a crooked apple tree, crooked
as a horn. Shall it be pulled up? No.
The apple tree is good, tho crooks nre bad.
You drive down a stake to regulate the
crooks out of it, because in after years the
tree will reward the labor. In the other
corner is a thorn-bush as crooked as the
apple tree. Do you regulate that? No,
because it is utterly worthless, and the time
There in the lot is q calf with n
broken leg. What do you do? Regu-
late the leg SO as to remove the bad
features. and in after years the COW pays for
the labor. There in another lot is q mad
dog with a broken leg. Do you ever regu-
late that leg? No. The more you fuss
with the animal the worse off you are. 1t
is utterly bad; the remedy is to kill. In
your lot stands q large apple tree with
knotty limbs, with little runts of apples.
Will you cut it down? No. Regulate it,
trim it up and graft it. Ten years pass
away and here is a large apple, the legiti-
mate fruit of regulation; but regulate the
grog shops of Detroit with yonr accursed
tax law from now until Gabriel blows his
trumpet, and the last fruit you will pick off
the accursed things is the same you get to-
day, bummers every time. Do you expect
You can ever regulate the grog shop SO as
to produce Christians. that YOU can ever
regulate it so that it's customers will be
good men, their wives happy and thei,
children happy? Don't you know that SC
long as you permit the thing to exist thai
just in proportion that you permit it te
exist it will breed drunkards, broken
heated women and beggar children? 1t is
bad and all bad, vile and only vile, evil
aud only evil, and should be destroyed.
The system of taxation and regulation has
been tried in England for more Than 400
years, and under it the liquor business has
grown to be the master of the British ma
ton. In this country under the system OF
regulation and taxation the liquor-shops
have doubled in numbers within the last
twenty-five years. There is not a law
yer before me who doesn't know that it
will not take one-half the force to en-
force prohibition that it does to fail to
enforce license or taxation. The reason is
standing in society, creates property rights,
and makes a majority of al the sales legal.
Under it violation becomes the exception
and the legal sale the rule. In this way
the presumption of innocence is in favor
of the liquor business. To secure q on
viction you must break down the presump-
ton of the legal sale and establish the eX-
ception of the illegal or unrighteous sale.
Your tax law prohibits the sale of liquor to
minors. In this State you totally prohibit
murder. You start down the streets OF
Detroit in the morning, accompanied by
your boy, who is seventeen years old. As
| you approach q saloon, he says: Good
morning, father" and enters and you wait.
He went in sober. Two hours after he
comes out stupidity drunk. You have
watched the door during the time, you
know he has not left the place; he went in
sober and came out drunk. Is that any
evidence that the man in the place sold him
liquor in violation of law? Not a bit of it.
I 90 into another building later; you see
me come out, and soon after you discove,
that a man has been murdered there; ne
lies with q knife in his heart. You COM
to my home, you find blood on my coat,
scratches on my hand. Is there any eyi-
dence that 1 killed the man? Unless 1 car
show how the blood came on my coat
and the scratches on my hands-unless ]
can show what 1 was doing in that
place, how the man was killed-you will
send me to States prison for life for his
murder. Yet the evidence that would
send me to States prison for murder would
not touch q taxed liquor dealer for selling
liquor to your boy and s.nding him to a
drunkard's grave and q ~drunkard's hell.
The law prohibits the sale OF liquor on
certain days. You enter a saloon on one
of those days, see a man step to the bar.
hear him call for liquor, see the liquo'
d.